Pre-jeune. Perles. Pistolets.
October 11, 2009
” Salut, Bonjour, Coucou … Je m’appelle … et en ce moment la communaute Bahaie de Toulouse est en train de lancer un groupe de … a Junior Youth Group for the young people between the ages of 11 and 15 in Empalot. This group is a chance to bring young people of all different backgrounds to work together and become agents of change in their world, in their neighbourhood. It is incredible listening to the ideas of the junior youth as they discuss how to help others and improve the life around them; raise awareness about the environment, organize a football match for the children, offering lessons teaching others how to read and write, taking care of the aged, cleaning the buildings, painting a mural…
What is excellence? What does the word excellence mean to you? In this group we are going to develop our spiritual and intellectual excellence. What are some of the spiritual qualities that you can name? What are the qualities that you see in the people you admire or love very much?
“Que chaque matin soit meilleur que la veille, et chaque lendemain plus riche que le jour précédent”
What does it mean to make each morning better than its eve?
“That tomorrow will be a beautiful day and it doesn’t rain?” says one JY (in French)
Mmm…unfortunately the weather is slightly out of our control … but we can work on ourselves to so that “Demain je serai meilleur qu’aujourd’hui”…
Although, it’s always better when it doesn’t rain. Though to be fair the weather here in Toulouse is pretty good despite it being October.
And the energy of the junior youth is endless … we had the group with discussion, games and rap and then played basketball for about 2 hours and then a few persuaded us to let them back into the apartment to collect their sheets of paper and then they stayed at the apartment for about an hour singing and trying to make a human tower. Those boys are pearls, as Bassim says.
“Ca t’interesse? Il y a un session chaque samedi, point de rendez-vous devant la mediatheque a 14hr!”
Another thing I noticed here in Empalot is that all the boys run around with guns! Just after the junior youth group and on our way the basketball court, two boys ran into the house and brought out two guns to shoot at us and each other just after having thought about how to help others …
The other side to Marie revealed...
